I am currently running a variety of distributions, primarily Linux Mint 18.Previously I was running KDE 4.3.3 on top of Fedora 11 (for the first experiment) and KDE 4.6.5 on top of Gentoo (for the second experiment).

I am currently running a variety of distributions, primarily Linux Mint 18.Previously I was running KDE 4.3.3 on top of Fedora 11 (for the first experiment) and KDE 4.6.5 on top of Gentoo (for the second experiment).

In my never-ending quest to seek out the hidden gems amongst the Linux alternative software pile I decided to take a look into what was offered in terms of podcast clients or podcatchers if you prefer. It wasn’t long into my Googling that I stumbled across a beautiful piece of software that I had never even heard of before: the Vocal podcast client.

What a nice, clean interface

Originally designed for elementaryOS this application presents a very clean, attractive interface for managing both your audio and video podcasts. It comes with a few different options like the basics – ability to stream versus download the podcasts or quickly skip forward/backward – but it was how it walked the user through setting it up the first time that actually impressed me the most. Here’s a look at that process.

When you first open the application you are presented with the following screen:

Two pretty standard options and one very intriguing one

As you can see in the screenshot there are two pretty standard options – Add a new Feed or Import Subscriptions from another application – but it was the third option that really intrigued me. So what exactly is the Vocal Starter Pack? It’s a curated list of high-quality podcasts that give a good spread of different podcast types and topics, a perfect place for a new user to start getting into podcasts. Seriously this is a really awesome idea!

The Starter Pack imports just like any other export you may have brought over

So once you’ve select your podcasts or imported them you can begin the fun part – the actual listening or watching of your episodes. Selecting an audio episode will display the embedded show notes and other information about it. This is a neat touch and lets you quickly see what other episodes are in the feed that you may want to listen to as well.

Podcast feed and related info

Or if video podcasts are more your thing Vocal has you covered there as well.

That’s an unfortunate screenshot

Overall for as simple as this application is I’m very impressed with Vocal. Sure it only does the basics but it does it really well! If the feature set of the upcoming version 2 is anything to go by Vocal has a good future ahead of it (What? Built in iTunes store podcast browser? Heck yeah!).

I am currently running a variety of distributions, primarily Linux Mint 18.Previously I was running KDE 4.3.3 on top of Fedora 11 (for the first experiment) and KDE 4.6.5 on top of Gentoo (for the second experiment).

I am currently running a variety of distributions, primarily Linux Mint 18.Previously I was running KDE 4.3.3 on top of Fedora 11 (for the first experiment) and KDE 4.6.5 on top of Gentoo (for the second experiment).

I am currently running a variety of distributions, primarily Linux Mint 18.Previously I was running KDE 4.3.3 on top of Fedora 11 (for the first experiment) and KDE 4.6.5 on top of Gentoo (for the second experiment).

I am currently running a variety of distributions, primarily Linux Mint 18.Previously I was running KDE 4.3.3 on top of Fedora 11 (for the first experiment) and KDE 4.6.5 on top of Gentoo (for the second experiment).

I am currently running a variety of distributions, primarily Linux Mint 18.Previously I was running KDE 4.3.3 on top of Fedora 11 (for the first experiment) and KDE 4.6.5 on top of Gentoo (for the second experiment).

I am currently running a variety of distributions, primarily Linux Mint 18.Previously I was running KDE 4.3.3 on top of Fedora 11 (for the first experiment) and KDE 4.6.5 on top of Gentoo (for the second experiment).

I am currently running a variety of distributions, primarily Linux Mint 18.Previously I was running KDE 4.3.3 on top of Fedora 11 (for the first experiment) and KDE 4.6.5 on top of Gentoo (for the second experiment).

I am currently running a variety of distributions, primarily Linux Mint 18.Previously I was running KDE 4.3.3 on top of Fedora 11 (for the first experiment) and KDE 4.6.5 on top of Gentoo (for the second experiment).

I am currently running a variety of distributions, primarily Linux Mint 18.Previously I was running KDE 4.3.3 on top of Fedora 11 (for the first experiment) and KDE 4.6.5 on top of Gentoo (for the second experiment).

Listener Feedback podcast is a royalty free and Creative Commons music podcast. This episode, titled “Episode 52: Full Album – Silence – L’autre Endroit” was released on Sunday January 24th, 2016. To suggest artists and albums that should be featured you can send an e-mail to contact@listenerfeedback.net or message @LFpodcast on Twitter.

I am currently running a variety of distributions, primarily Linux Mint 18.Previously I was running KDE 4.3.3 on top of Fedora 11 (for the first experiment) and KDE 4.6.5 on top of Gentoo (for the second experiment).

I am currently running a variety of distributions, primarily Linux Mint 18.Previously I was running KDE 4.3.3 on top of Fedora 11 (for the first experiment) and KDE 4.6.5 on top of Gentoo (for the second experiment).

I am currently running a variety of distributions, primarily Linux Mint 18.Previously I was running KDE 4.3.3 on top of Fedora 11 (for the first experiment) and KDE 4.6.5 on top of Gentoo (for the second experiment).

Listener Feedback podcast is a royalty free and Creative Commons music podcast. This episode, titled “Episode 51: Full Album – Other Noises – S.L.A.S.H” was released on Sunday January 10th, 2016. To suggest artists and albums that should be featured you can send an e-mail to contact@listenerfeedback.net or message @LFpodcast on Twitter.

I am currently running a variety of distributions, primarily Linux Mint 18.Previously I was running KDE 4.3.3 on top of Fedora 11 (for the first experiment) and KDE 4.6.5 on top of Gentoo (for the second experiment).

Listener Feedback podcast is a royalty free and Creative Commons music podcast. This episode, titled “Episode 50: Full Album – Tab – Dead Poets: The Village Idiots” was released on Sunday December 27th, 2015. To suggest artists and albums that should be featured you can send an e-mail to contact@listenerfeedback.net or message @LFpodcast on Twitter.

I am currently running a variety of distributions, primarily Linux Mint 18.Previously I was running KDE 4.3.3 on top of Fedora 11 (for the first experiment) and KDE 4.6.5 on top of Gentoo (for the second experiment).

Listener Feedback podcast is a royalty free and Creative Commons music podcast. This episode, titled “Episode 49: Full Album – Final Round – None Of Us Will Ever Leave A Legacy” was released on Sunday December 13th, 2015. To suggest artists and albums that should be featured you can send an e-mail to contact@listenerfeedback.net or message @LFpodcast on Twitter.

I am currently running a variety of distributions, primarily Linux Mint 18.Previously I was running KDE 4.3.3 on top of Fedora 11 (for the first experiment) and KDE 4.6.5 on top of Gentoo (for the second experiment).

Hacker Public Radio (HPR) is a podcast that releases shows every weekday Monday through Friday. What differentiates HPR from other podcasts is that the shows are produced by the community. This episode, titled “The Linux Experiment” was released on Wednesday December 2nd 2015.

I am currently running a variety of distributions, primarily Linux Mint 18.Previously I was running KDE 4.3.3 on top of Fedora 11 (for the first experiment) and KDE 4.6.5 on top of Gentoo (for the second experiment).

I have to admit that I hadn’t even heard of Guayadeque until starting this little distro hopping adventure but since then I’ve found it to be the default music player in more than one distribution. As such I’ve decided to try and use it to see if it will work better for me instead of the usual alternatives.

Seeing as I’m a big fan of podcasts I’ve decided to see how Guayadeque handles the process of adding and listening to my feeds.

Start Guayadeque and click the Podcasts tab

Step 1

Right click under the Channels column and click New Channel

You can add feeds directly from the podcast directory or from feed URLs

If for some reason you can’t find your podcast in their existing directory you can simply find the podcast RSS feed and plug it into the Url text box instead.

For example let’s say I wanted to add the feed for Listener Feedback podcast. Unfortunately it isn’t already listed in the built-in directory but there are a few handy feeds that I found on the website here (there is even an Ogg Vorbis feed for higher quality). Once pasted in Guayadeque was able to find the podcast details right away:

Some handy settings are available

Download and play

A short download later and the podcast is ready to be played!

Playing away

So all told it’s a relatively painless to add a podcast to Guayadeque. My one issues with the user interface are that it feels a bit dated and seems to require a lot of right-clicking and context menus which may not be immediately obvious for some users. That said they’re very minor complaints and it is still a very functional application.

I am currently running a variety of distributions, primarily Linux Mint 18.Previously I was running KDE 4.3.3 on top of Fedora 11 (for the first experiment) and KDE 4.6.5 on top of Gentoo (for the second experiment).

Listener Feedback podcast is a royalty free and Creative Commons music podcast. This episode, titled “Episode 47: Full Album – LukHash – The Other Side” was released on Saturday November 14th, 2015. To suggest artists and albums that should be featured you can send an e-mail to contact@listenerfeedback.net or message @LFpodcast on Twitter.

I am currently running a variety of distributions, primarily Linux Mint 18.Previously I was running KDE 4.3.3 on top of Fedora 11 (for the first experiment) and KDE 4.6.5 on top of Gentoo (for the second experiment).